| INITIAL PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCED FOR THIRD ANNUAL BREAKING THE BINARY THEATRE FESTIVAL | |
| Posted by: Official_Press_Release 02:31 pm EDT 09/25/24 | |
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| INITIAL PROGRAMMING ANNOUNCED FOR THIRD ANNUAL BREAKING THE BINARY THEATRE FESTIVAL PRESENTING SEVEN EVENINGS OF NEW WORK CREATED BY TNB2S+ ARTISTS FOR TNB2S+ ARTISTS AT LITTLEFIELD AND THE PETER JAY SHARP THEATER AT PLAYWRIGHTS HORIZONS OCTOBER 21-27, 2024 New York, NY (September 25, 2024) – Breaking the Binary Theatre (George Strus, they/them) announced today the programming for the third annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. The festival, which will continue the groundbreaking theater company's mission of producing work created and developed by transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+) theatre artists, will take place October 21, 2024 – October 27, 2024. The festival will open with TRUTH //: An Interdisciplinary Variety Show at Littlefield (625 Sackett St, Brooklyn NY) before continuing on at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons. "After celebrating BTB's second birthday in July, we are thrilled to announce the works we'll be developing and showcasing in our third annual Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival," stated Strus. "After receiving over 200 full-length works by TNB2S+ writers to consider through our open call and submissions processes, we could not be more thrilled by how the dynamic line-up has come together. We are so honored to welcome, or in some cases welcome back, these illustrious artists to the Festival and simply cannot wait to welcome audiences to witness these works-in-progress next month at Littlefield and Playwrights Horizons." All tickets for the festival are complimentary and will be available beginning Monday, October 7th at www.btb-nyc.com/24festival . Casting will be announced at a later date. Festival casting is by The Telsey Office / Charlie Hano, CSA. The current festival lineup includes: Monday, October 21 at 7pm: TRUTH //: An Interdisciplinary Variety Show Co-conceived by Noax (they/them) and George Strus (they/them) at Littlefield, 635 Sackett Street, Brooklyn Following last year's presentation of PARADISE, Noax and BTB Founding Artistic Director George Strus are joining forces again to create TRUTH //: AN INTERDISCIPLINARY REVUE at Littlefield. This special opening performance will showcase the talents of twelve stellar TNB2S+ artists and acts of various disciplines: vocalists, drag artists, comedians, and more showcasing original performance pieces inspired by the prompt "truth // dare." Tuesday, October 22 at 7pm: PRUNIN, HOEIN, N CUTTIN GRAPES By Nissy Aya (Nissy; she/ze/we) Directed by Dominique Rider at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan In the highly regimented xxxxxxx, we witness the lives and lessons of a community of femmes assigned to teach the tools of sexual pleasure to others. Led by Alpha and her right-hand, her beta, Bilinda, this proud community of hoes carries on just them and their chil'ren. But with the pressures of a Choosing looming, the community deals with an unexpected and daunting assignment. Wednesday, October 23 at 7pm: HARVEST OLIVES: A COLLECTIVE IMPROVISATION By Yaffa AS (they/she) Developed in collaboration with Rad Pereira (they/them) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan Drawing from Mx. Yaffa's books of writing and poetry as a trans Palestinian death worker and community organizer, we invoke utopias, spiral through grief and jump between realms through a collective improvisation. We hold a container for chaos, intimacy, restorative devastation, falling apart, and space to commune with ancestors through oral history and experimentation. HARVEST OLIVES is adapted from Desecrated Poppies, Blood Orange, Inara with guidance from ancestors, community members, and guides. Thursday, October 24 at 7pm FIRESIDE DANCES By MJ Kaufman (he/they) Directed by Aya Ogawa at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan When 16-year-old Em decides to move from a farm in rural Oregon to Portland in order to go high school, she lands in the home of distant relatives: lesbian moms Greta and Annie and their overachieving 8-year-old Kaitlyn. Cultures clash between rural and urban queer lifestyles, class differences and politics but Em and Kaitlyn vow to stay sisters no matter what. Friday, October 25 at 7pm A RARE BIRD Written and directed by Zaza Diana Oh (they/them) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan A RARE BIRD is an interdisciplinary Play, Live Physical Intimacy, and Quiet and Honest Sex Show. One could say that it is the birth of a new genre of extreme slow porn. A Rare Bird captures Skye and Gabriel's date on the carpeted floor against the couch of a studio apartment where neither is willing or able to make the first move. For Skye (ahem, the extrovert) and Gabriel, (ahem, the introvert) are stunted by their own respective shortcomings. We watch the date in real time with a VoiceEther (ahem, from Skye's POV) running. A RARE BIRD blends, defies, and subverts Erotic Thriller Cinema, Narrative Play, Stage Sex Show, and finally the Quiet and Slow Sex Education so many of us long for. This is an ode to Introversion, (loud) pauses, and letting less be. Saturday, October 26 at 7pm LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS By Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/they) Directed by Adin Walker (they/them) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan Estrella, a young trans playwright, is at a spiritual crossroads. She becomes the Old Hollywood actress Lupe Velez on the last night of her life to find the answers to her questions, and the two people who hold them are Anna May Wong and Gary Cooper, her lifetime's greatest relationships. LUPE FINDS ME IN THE GARDEN OF DREAMS spans years in cinematic history to raise the question: what are the costs to being a queer artist of color in today's industry, and what would happen if we found a way of creating ourselves and our work outside of it? Sunday, October 27 at 7pm // DARE: A COLLECTION OF COMMISSIONED SCENES AND MONOLOGUES Fo-conceived by L Morgan Lee (she/her) and George Strus (they/them) Featuring new works by D.A. Mindell, Dillon Yruegas (he/él), Esmé Maria Ng (they/he/she), Ianne Fields Stewart (they/she), Imani Russell (they/them), Jayne Deely (they/them), Jen Silverman (they/them), Jordan Ramirez Puckett (they/them), Nikhil Mahapatra (any pronouns), Nora Brigid Monahan (she/they), Sasha Velour (she/they) and Sophie Sagan-Gutherz (they/them) at the Peter Jay Sharp Theater at Playwrights Horizons 416 West 42nd Street, Manhattan Following OVERHEARD and BLISS, BTB Core Community member L Morgan Lee and Founding Artistic Director George Strus are partnering with Broadway Licensing for the third year in a row to create // DARE: A COLLECTION OF COMMISSIONED SCENES AND MONOLOGUES. The twelve commissioned works inspired by the prompt "truth // dare" will be crafted together and brought to life by a cast of five TNB2S+ performers to close the 2024 Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival. The works will then be published and licensed by Broadway Licensing in 2025. To download headshots, click here . To download bios, click here. Breaking the Binary Theatre is a new work development and community building hub wherein transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2S+*) artists come together to reclaim our artistic license and liberty through a number of initiatives and programs, including the annual all-TNB2S+ Breaking the Binary Theatre Festival each October. This fall, Playwrights Horizons is producing Sarah Mantell's In the Amazon Warehouse Parking Lot in association with Breaking the Binary Theatre. Performances begin at the Mainstage Theater at Playwrights Horizons on October 10. Launched in July 2022 and founded and led by George Strus (they/them), the organization has produced over thirty-five workshops and readings of new works by TNB2S+ artists; produced a three-week run of Cecilia Gentili's RED INK off-Broadway starring Jes Tom, Angelica Ross, and Peppermint, raising over $35,000 for charities; commissioned over fifty TNB2S+ artists; hosted over thirty community events; launched a free educational Summer Intensive for emerging TNB2S+ performers, a New Musicals program to develop musicals written by and featuring TNB2S+ performers, and a BTB Across America program for TNB2S+ artists outside of New York; published two collections with Broadway Licensing; partnered with Playbill, Signature Theatre, Roundabout Theatre Company, and BroadwayCon; been in-residence at Playwrights Horizons, Williamstown Theatre Festival and New York Stage and Film; and paid out over $500,000 to over 400 TNB2S+ artists. *Breaking the Binary Theatre uses the term "TNB2S+" in hopes to encompass any person who is transgender, non-binary, Two-Spirit, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, agender, intersex, gender expansive, bigender, gender fluid, or any identity within the umbrella transgender community. Breaking the Binary Theatre is counseled by its Core Community, a voluntary advisory board of prominent TNB2S+ theater artists working to further its outreach and impact. The board includes Tony Award-nominated designer Adam Rigg (they/them, The Skin of Our Teeth), Kleban Prize and Jonathan Larson Award-winning writer César Alvarez (they/them, Futurity), New York Stage and Film's former Artistic Director Chris Burney (he/they), Princess Grace Award Honoraria recipient and director David Mendizábal (they/he, The Bandaged Place), Guggenheim Fellow and writer Jen Silverman (they/them+, Spain), Tony and Obie Award-winning actor and writer John Cameron Mitchell (he/they, "Shrill" on Hulu), Tony Award-winning multi-hyphenate KO who was formerly known as Karen Olivo (they/them, In the Heights), Kleban Prize and Jonathan Larson Award-winning poet Kit Yan (they/he/she, Interstate), Tony Award nominee L Morgan Lee (she/her, A Strange Loop), Jane Chambers Prize and Helen Merrill Award-winning writer MJ Kaufman (he/they, A Transparent Musical), Antonyo Award-nominated costume designer and activist Qween Jean (she/her, Primary Trust), Co-Director of A.R.T./New York Risa Shoup (they/them), Tomás Matos (they/them, "Fire Island"), Grammy Award-winning interdisciplinary storyteller Ty Defoe (he/we/ty, Straight White Men), and Artistic Director of Rattlestick Theater Will Davis (he/him). Breaking the Binary Theatre is powered by Producer Hub. For more information, please visit http://www.btb-nyc.com or @BreakingtheBinaryTheatre on Instagram. BIOGRAPHIES Adin Walker (they/them) is a frequent collaborator with the dance, puppetry and climate-justice focused Phantom Limb Company, whose production Falling Out about the 2011 tsunami and radiation disaster in Fukushima premiered in BAM's Next Wave Festival. Walker recently directed the world premieres of Yilong Liu's PrEP Play, or Blue Parachute (New Conservatory Theater Center) and Adam Ashraf Elsayigh's Data Queen (Golden Thread's ReOrient Festival), both in SF. Other directing includes the NYC premiere of Roger Q. Mason's The White Dress (NYC) and regional productions of L M Feldman's Grace, or the Art of Climbing and Allison Gregory's Not Medea. Walker is currently in residence at Stanford in Performance Studies, and has published essays in the journals TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, Theatre Topics, and New Review of Film and Television Studies. Aya Ogawa is an award-winning theater-maker. They received an Obie Award for writing, directing and conceiving The Nosebleed (Productions: Japan Society & Chocolate Factory; Lincoln Center Theater; Woolly Mammoth. Tour: Walker Art Center; REDCAT; Wexner Center for the Arts). They directed Haruna Lee's Obie Award- winning Suicide Forest (The Bushwick Starr; Ma-Yi). This season they will be developing a new play titled Meat Suit, or the shitshow of motherhood. Select awards: Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting; Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award; The Playwrights' Center's McKnight National Residency & Commission; Resident playwright, New Dramatists; MacDowell Fellow. Dominique Rider is a Brooklyn-based director and writer whose work seeks to answer the question: "What is a world unmade by slavery?" while analyzing the layers of anti-blackness that maintain our world. Deploying theatre and performance as tools of Afropessimism, Dominique has developed and staged work with Portland Center Stage, Portland Stage, The Bushwick Starr, The New Group, The Park Avenue Armory, and more. Past fellowships/residencies include The Civilians R&D, The Atlantic, Hi-Arts, The National Black Theatre, TheaterWorks Hartford, NYSAF, BRIC Arts, Roundabout, and NAMT. Dominique is a Vision Resident at Ars Nova, a producer with CLASSIX, and an artist in residence at Duke University. Esperanza Rosales Balcárcel (she/they) is a trans Guatemalan artist, born in Guatemala City and raised in Norwalk, CT. Her works are spiritual and physically adventurous journeys that give Queer BIPOC voices a space to interrogate core wounds and find a path towards healing. Esperanza is the recipient of the Paul Greene Award from the National Theatre Conference, the Kennedy Center's Latinx Playwriting Award, as well as a Relentless Award Honorable Mention for their play Color Boy. Her play Lupe Finds Me in the Garden of Dreams is a finalist for the Leah Ryan Prize, the O'Neill Playwrights Conference, the Van Lier Fellowship, and was developed through NYTW's 2024 Dartmouth Residency. She is a two-time nominee for the Ollie Award, as well as a Weissberger New Play Award. Currently, Esperanza is a teaching artist for the Public Theater, and a Lecturer in Playwriting at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale. BA: Princeton, MFA: Yale George Strus (they/them) is a Tony Award-nominated and Obie Award-winning trans non-binary Latiné producer and dramaturg. They founded Breaking the Binary Theatre: an Obie Award-winning new work development and community building hub for transgender, non-binary, and Two-Spirit+ (TNB2s+) theatermakers. Since the organization's launch in July of 2022, Breaking the Binary Theatre has paid out over $500,000 to over 400 TNB2S+ artists. Commercially, they were a proud co-producer of Here We Are and Illinoise (2024 Tony Nomination). Current co-producing credits include Oh, Mary!; The Roommate; Romeo + Juliet. Upcoming co-producing credits All In, and The Last Five Years. They were awarded the 2024 Prince Fellowship (in association with Columbia University School of the Arts), receiving mentorship from Kristin Caskey, Sue Frost, Jeffrey Seller, Thomas Schumacher, and David Stone. www.georgestrus.com L Morgan Lee (she/her) is a Tony Award® nominated actress and storyteller known for her history-making turn in A Strange Loop on Broadway - a performance which also garnered her an Antonyo Award and a Drama League Distinguished Performance nomination. In London, she was seen playing artist Lili Elbe in a musical adaptation of The Danish Girl (currently in development). Other work includes well over a decade of Off-Broadway, Regional, International/National tours and concerts with artists from Paul McCartney to Our Lady J. In the studio, L Morgan was the voice of Ornate Williams in the "Sugar Maple" Series w. Fred Savage (Osiris Media) and can be found on Joe Iconis' album (Ghostlight Records), "The Rainbow Lullaby Album" (Broadway Records), and more. For more: @lmorganlee | lmorganlee.com Noax (they/them) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Manhattan. They have worked professionally in the entertainment industry for several years as an actor, singer, writer, and advocate in NYC. They seek to foster community amongst the various ecosystems they inhabit and discover transformative ways in which we can educate artists that are rooted in equity, self-empowerment, and community building. Organizations to consider donating to: Breaking the Binary, Black Trans Liberation, For the Gworls, Black Trans Femmes in the Arts, and The Marsha P. Johnson Institute. www.noax.me MJ Kaufman 's plays have been seen at The Mark Taper Forum, The Public Theater, WP Theater, NAATCO, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and theatres and schools around the country as well as in Russian in Moscow and in Australia. MJ has received the Helen Merrill Emerging Writers Award and residencies at the New Museum, MacDowell Colony, and SPACE on Ryder Farm. They are currently a resident playwright at New Dramatists and a member of Colt Coeur Theater Company. MJ co- founded Trans Lab Fellowship, a program to support emerging transgender theater artists. They are currently an Assistant Professor of Dramatic Writing at NYU. Nissy Aya (Nissy; she/ze/we) is Black and from the Bronx. She and all her younger selves tell stories and tall tales -- while helping others to do the same. As a cultural worker and writer, we believe in the transformative nature of storytelling, and examining how we move forward/shape new worlds/end this world through healing justice, Afrofuturist frameworks, and practices of feeling good. Our creative work reflects those notions while exploring the lines between archives and memory, detailing both the absence and presence of love, and giving all the life (and then some) to Black Femmes. Rad Pereira (they/them) is an (im)migrant cultural worker building consciousness between healing justice, system change, reindigenization and queer futures currently based between Lenapehoking (Brooklyn) and Haudenosaunee territory (upstate NY). Their work has been experienced on stages, screens, stoops, swamps and sidewalks all over Turtle Island through the support of many communities and organizations. They are Director of Engagement & Impact at NY Stage & Film. They are co-founder of Iron Path Farm & Arts. Their book Meeting the Moment: Socially Engaged Performance, 1965-2020, By Those Who Lived It is available through New Village Press. They are a proud board member of Superhero Clubhouse. Co-founder of You Are Here. They are on the co-leadership team at Network of Ensemble Theaters. Yaffa AS (she/they) is an acclaimed disabled, autistic, trans, queer, Muslim, and indigenous Palestinian. Yaffa is the executive Director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD) and has received multiple awards for their transformative work around displacement, decolonization, equity, and centering the lived experiences of individuals most impacted by injustice. Yaffa is an engineer, peer support specialist, death doula, birthing doula, and yoga teacher. Yaffa is the author of "Blood Orange," a poetry collection about displacement, colonization, and hope building, the editor "Inara: light of Utopia," about the current genocide and a free Falasteen, and "desecrated poppies" are out now. Their newest collection of essays "whispers beneath the orange groves" will be released Oct 7th, 2024. Zaza Diana Oh (they/them) is an Interdisciplinary Writer, Performer, Actor, Singer/Songwriter, Sonic Ritualist, DJ, and Creator of {my lingerie play} (10 underground performance installations in my lingerie, Rattlestick Playwrights Theatre, TOW Fellow, Venturous Capital Fellow, NY Times Critics Pick), Infinite Love Party (An Intentional Barefoot Potluck, Dance Party, and Sleepover for QTBiPOC & Their Allies, Bushwick Starr, NY Times Critics Pick), CLAIRVOYANCE (A Concert, Installation & Tree Planting Series celebrating Queer Magic, A.R.T.), OH FAMILY CONCERT (Documentary avail on All Arts TV & PBS), The Gift Project (Film & Concert series celebrating Elders of Marginalized Experience, Symphony Space, All-For-One), My H8 Letter to the Gr8 American Theatre (Various, The Public EWG), Depression Box (upcoming), The Dope North Star Workshop, Art Chxrch (an underground binaural beat brain massage & somatic dance party for creatives and introverts). Oh is the Recipient of the Helen Merrill Playwright Award, Susan Steinberg Playwright Award, United States Artists Fellowship for Theatre, Sundance Institute Fellowship, Van Lier Fellowship in Acting, A.R.T. Artist in Community Residency. Oh is a 2018 Williamstown Theatre Festival Playwright-in-Residence and is a Refinery29 Top LGBTQ+ Influencer. |
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